


if the world was ending, you'd come over. right?

by kanao



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bokuaka - Freeform, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Break Up, Post-Time Skip, Soulmates, falling in and out of love, still in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24945958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanao/pseuds/kanao
Summary: It’s a year or so to you. To Akaashi Keiji and Bokuto Koutarou, however, it is one year, four months, and three days since the door slammed shut on them. But if the world were to end that night, Bokuto Koutarou would still choose to go over to Akaashi Keiji’s. And only Akaashi Keiji’s.Right?
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 14
Kudos: 90





	if the world was ending, you'd come over. right?

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. i have no idea why i procrastinated this for so long........ but here it is! it reminded me of somebody that taught me the ropes on falling in love, so this feels a lot more personal! 
> 
> 2\. this au is inspired by if the world was ending by jp saxe and julia michaels. listen to it while reading if you may!
> 
> 3\. i have a huge yearning for art based on my aus haha... *twirls hair* hey.. artists... pick me pls...!
> 
> 4\. thank you my lovely baby niia for proof reading this for me, i love you! and thank you osgc and DRRRAAAGGGOOON gc (subject to change) for being my no1s forever and ever! this one is for you lot < 3
> 
> enjoy!

* * *

_I know, you know, we know  
_ _You weren't down for forever and it's fine  
_ _I know, you know, we know  
_ _We weren't meant for each other and it's fine_

  
  


Akaashi Keiji doesn’t know how long it has been since his eyes have been drawing circles following the ceiling fan. He doesn’t know how long the whirring of the faulty washing machine has been going on. He doesn’t know how long it has been.

 _It’s empty in here,_ Akaashi tells himself. He doesn’t know if ‘here’ meant his Muji-inspired double-room flat in the heart of Tokyo’s bustling district of Akihabara, or if ‘here’ meant his beating heart (which he has grown oblivious to). 

A beating heart could probably be a perfect substitute for a ticking clock. Both of them wait for nobody, even there is no purpose to continue beating, or ticking. They just follow the absolutely merciless purpose of theirs to make the happiest moments feel like a mere millisecond, while the most miserable ones feel like it’d last a lifetime.

To Akaashi Keiji, his heart’s miserable moment has been lasting for a year, four months, and three days (and counting).

Issue at hand: there is a void in Akaashi Keiji’s heart that he finds himself not quite being able to fill. Akaashi doesn’t actually know when this void was actually formed . Was it the moment they said they were breaking up? A day later where he got fucking wasted for the first time? A week? A month? He doesn’t really know. 

He thinks the empty void within him and his life can just be filled with something else, someone else. He thought that his job would be a perfect opportunity to forget about it. Just forget _everything._ After all, it was Akaashi’s dream job. But the realisation is a slow dawn of sleepless nights and long bus rides home.

Being in love and having a broken heart is kind of the same. You feel like you’re drowning in an endless stream of something intangible, and you don’t know how to ever get out of it. The difference between the two, though — you feel like you never want to get out of love, but you’re always in a constant state of pursuit in getting out of a heartbreak. 

The nearest thing to Akaashi that proves itself useful is the television remote, and Akaashi turns it on, while removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes, a small yawn escaping from his mouth. It’s the news. The monotonous voice fills his ears as he allows his eyelids to close for a minute or two.

“And now for the weather. Tokyo is expecting its first thundery showers in a long while. We recommend all to stay home tonight to be safe, as the storm is expected to last the entire night. If you wish to remain outside, do not forget to pack an umbrella with you.”

Akaashi’s eyes open immediately and he sits up. He quickly rushes to his window and true enough, there it was — clouds that greyed the dark Tokyo night sky, covering all of the stars that would shine brightly.

Akaashi hates that the first person who appears in his head is somebody he has been trying to forget this whole time. Akaashi hates that he is the _only_ person he thinks about. _God,_ Akaashi hates that he still fucking matters to him this entire time, despite him in a constant pursuit of changing his circumstance to be otherwise.

_Bokuto Koutarou._

(You may want to remember that name.)

Bokuto Koutarou doesn’t know if the fear that night was from the astraphobia or the words Akaashi Keiji had told him. He does know that in the midst of the roaring sky, the pent-up rage within him was roaring even louder.

He doesn’t really remember who hurt who first, but he knows that when the door slammed shut that day, he was alone. He never felt so alone; he feels like he’s drowning something endless. _Funny._ That’s exactly how love feels like as well.

When Bokuto Koutarou slow dances with Akaashi Keiji’s tender hands in his, bodies gently swaying to the rhythm of _Alvvays Essentials,_ hips subtly touching with each others’, Akaashi humming to the songs ever so frequently; that’s when Bokuto realises that he was drowning in love.

He was drowning, but never wanted to be rescued. He never wanted to come up and breathe the air outside, take a breath which wasn’t from Akaashi Keiji’s lungs when mouths and tongue were used. Murmurs and moans, teeth, sweet nothings.

So when Bokuto wakes up the next morning, Akaashi’s legs are not wrapped around his, his lips tickling the crook of his neck. He feels like he can’t breathe, but he knows it’s a different kind of breathless. Perhaps God told him that he was having too many happy moments when Akaashi Keiji was there, so now that he wasn’t, living hell was a suitable narrative for his life.

The storm that night leaves Bokuto shaking and crying, _alone._ He is fully aware that it’s not just because of the thunder and lightning. It hurts more that everytime a clap of thunder resonates in the air, he pictures smaller yet stronger arms around Bokuto, gentle kisses pressed against his temple, fingers drawing circles in his hair.

The scene is in his head, but the bed stays empty.

* * *

_But if the world was ending  
_ _You'd come over, right?  
_ _You'd come over and you'd stay the night  
_ _Would you love me for the hell of it?  
_ _All our fears would be irrelevant  
_ _The sky'd be falling and I'd hold you tight  
_ _And there wouldn't be a reason why  
_ _We would even have to say goodbye  
_ _If the world was ending  
_ _You'd come over, right?  
_ _Right?_

  
  


Akaashi Keiji was always the one who had the mindset of dating not for the ‘experience’ or for the ‘thrill of it’, but rather with the intent of marrying the person. Which was probably why he never got into one his entire high school life. 

Don’t get me wrong — Akaashi Keiji was _stunning._ He had gotten tons of confessions, from girls _and_ boys alike. But Akaashi always turned them down with a soft smile that gave all the same kind of heartache that Akaashi never intentionally wished upon them.

“You’re practically the heartbreaker of the school, Keiji,” Bokuto Koutarou, Akaashi’s best friend, and charming senior in the volleyball club, would muse. Akaashi would only hum in reply. _Heartbreaker, huh?_

“I’d only want to date someone I see a future with,” Akaashi says ever so casually, and Bokuto finds himself actually thinking about what Akaashi had said. Bokuto doesn’t know what’s the feeling stirring within him, but there’s a still, small voice inside his heart that says something. Bokuto doesn’t know whether he wants to listen.

_You want to be that person to Akaashi Keiji someday, don’t you?_

Akaashi Keiji was a man of very few words. But he speaks the right words, at the right time. Which is probably why so many of his confessions remained anonymous, most of them coming in the form of pink envelopes with the sweet scent of lavender tickling his nose. 

Akaashi opens his locker that day to see a grey envelope seated comfortably on the top of his school shoes. Bokuto’s eyes widen as he sees Akaashi open the envelope ever so casually and reading the content inside. 

“Another note?” Bokuto asks, and Akaashi rolls his eyes and puts the note back. “You’re quite the dumbass, Bokuto-san. You do know we study together every day, right?” Bokuto deadpans. 

“I’ll give you some time to think about it, Akaashi. Really, you don’t have to give me an answer, or you don’t have to feel pressured or anything —”

“— yes, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi’s eyes light up, and Bokuto’s mouth is left hanging open. Did he hear him right? No way, no _fucking_ way did Akaashi Keiji, best friend that Bokuto Koutarou is madly, hopelessly, in love with, just said yes. _Yes._

“You’ll be my boyfriend?” Bokuto points at himself and Akaashi finds himself giggling. “Yes, I’ll date you. I’ll be your boyfriend.”

“You’ll hold my hand?” Akaashi nods his head. “You’ll cuddle with me?” Same answer. “You’ll let me… kiss you?” Bokuto hesitates at the last one, but Akaashi can’t help laughing. 

“Yes, Bokuto-san. You can kiss me,” Akaashi reaches out to squish Bokuto’s cheeks. Bokuto feels like he is about to literally explode. God, _god,_ Bokuto is so in love with Akaashi Keiji.

Which is also probably why Bokuto doesn’t think twice before cupping Akaashi’s face and pressing his lips onto Akaashi’s. And lord help him, Akaashi kisses him back without thinking. “I love you, Keiji,” Bokuto tells him. 

“Hey,” Akaashi pulls away first and looks Bokuto in the eye. “I’ve probably been in love for as long as I’ve known you.” 

And that’s how it happens. Bokuto and Akaashi became two boys in love with one another, never knowing that falling deeper into love was ever possible when both of them have each other. 

That’s the problem with falling too deep, though. You think you know the way out, you think that you can come back the same way you went in. But you can’t. It’s the easiest to fall in love, but _staying_ in love? 

Bokuto Koutarou and Akaashi Keiji wonder who got tired of staying first. 

They wonder who was the first one that suggested that they should take a break on that fateful night of screams, tears, and slams. 

Bokuto and Akaashi were both exhausted from their own lives. Two hundred and twenty nine miles away from one another on the daily, and here they were — in Akaashi’s Muji-inspired two room apartment in the heart of Tokyo’s bustling district of Akihabara, voices pitched higher after every sentence.

They’ve been doing it for two years. Bokuto living his life as a professional Volleyball player, Akaashi living his as an Editorial for a major publisher. They were doing great — individually. 

“It’s going to work out,” Akaashi promises Bokuto who sniffles softly on the other line. There is a small voice inside both of their heart that tries to scream out to them, telling them that they were both lying to themselves. 

Akaashi wonders why he makes a promise he knows he can’t keep that night. 

One promise leads to another, and then another. And soon, there it was — an accumulated lot of promises that Akaashi Keiji and Bokuto Koutarou realise they couldn’t keep from the very beginning. And then, slowly, but eventually, it happened.

“Keiji, you’ve been tired. Maybe I shouldn’t have come over —”

“— if not today, then _when_ , Koutarou?!” Akaashi’s voice comes out louder than expected, and the other’s heart doesn’t open like it usually does. Instead, it clenches. 

Faults begin to be thrown across the room, one after another. Akaashi is the first one to break down. Bokuto has only seen Akaashi cry once, and it was when Fukurodani was so close to winning Nationals that year, but they still placed second. 

Perhaps it was the same situation here. They were so close, but now they could never achieve it. They couldn’t achieve the perfect relationship they wanted for each other, not for _them._

“We’re ending this,” Bokuto doesn’t remember most of the conversation from that hazy night, but he does remember that. He remembers the words coming out of Akaashi’s mouth, and he remembers the way his tears begin rolling down his cheeks.

God, Akasahi wasn’t going to hold him then. _Oh god,_ he wasn’t going to hold him anymore. Akaashi Keiji wasn’t his boyfriend anymore.

Bokuto picks up his jacket and his keys and takes a final glance at Akaashi. He is wearing Bokuto’s fucking MSBY jersey. It was the last he going to see of that fucking shirt. The last he was going to see of Akaashi fucking Keiji.

“I wonder when we stopped loving each other, Akaashi,” Bokuto nods his head, chuckling softly to himself, “I wonder who stopped loving who first.” _God damn it, Bokuto Koutarou. Why are you lying against your own teeth?_

The final slam of the door echoes in the air for a while. Akaashi falls onto his knees and clutches onto the MSBY jersey closer to him, like it’s the last thing existing in the world for him. For it was — the last thing existing in the now broken world of Akaashi Keiji and Bokuto Koutarou.

It’s back to present day and time. It begins to pour outside, but Akaashi doesn’t realise it. It takes a clap of thunder for him to snap back to his senses, and for him to realise that his thumb is fondly grazing on a framed picture of him and Bokuto after a MSBY’s winning match. Akaashi had travelled those countless miles to see someone so important to him then. _Then._

The doorbell buzzes. Akaashi raises an eyebrow and puts down the picture and rubs the fatigue from his eyes as he makes his way to the door. It must be the neighbour asking if Akaashi had an extra couple of eggs (again).

He doesn’t bother looking into the peephole before opening the door. 

(For the sake of the plot, hey, you probably guessed it right!)

Akaashi stands dumbfounded. Bokuto is about to murmur out a small and frail, ‘Keiji’, but Akaashi beats him to it, with an even smaller voice — “Bokuto-san.” 

_Bokuto-san._ Bokuto Koutarou isn’t Koutarou to Akaashi Keiji anymore. He’s back to being third year Bokuto Koutarou being in love with second year Akaashi again. He’s back to being Bokuto-san. 

It hits him like a truck, and Bokuto regrets even coming back here again. “Keiji,” _god,_ he can’t help himself. _You used to call me Koutarou._ Akaashi takes a moment to process, and he can’t meet Bokuto’s eyes. 

“Come on in,” Akaashi clears his throat and Bokuto nods his head. Ah yes, just another awkward episode of exes meeting after a year. The punchline attached: both of them have been keeping track of the days since that very same door that Akaashi now opens for Bokuto slammed shut on him.

Bokuto takes in his surroundings and wants to tear up already. It’s the same Akaashi Keiji he knew. The same Akaashi Keiji he fell in love with, and never actually fell out of love with. 

“It’s the same in here,” Bokuto says, and Akaashi makes himself busy with the tea he prepares for the both of them. “You can take a seat on the sofa if you’d like,” Akaashi tells him, and Bokuto does as told. There is a wave of memories hitting the inmost part of his brain, from the time they kiss, they cuddle, they fall asleep on — it all comes back.

“Bokuto-san,” Bokuto sees a cup being handed to him and his fingers curl around the object, careful not to let himself touch Akaashi’s. _It’s funny_ , he thinks to himself, _how they went from being able to touch each other at parts they could not even fathom as an expression of love, to none at all._

Akaashi sits himself with his own cup on the other end of the sofa. They take a minute or two to bask in the silence that they don’t even realise themselves to get progressively heavier, to the point that Bokuto is the first one to not be able to hold it in any longer.

“I’m sorry I came here so suddenly. I texted you but you didn’t reply,” Bokuto explains himself as he puts the cup down. Akaashi ‘ah’s slowly, nodding his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t check my phone. I just got back from work.” _Lie,_ Bokuto points out to himself. And he’s right. Akaashi had been looking at the framed picture of the both of them seated on the kitchen counter.

“Would you have said no, though?” Bokuto asks, his voice small. Akaashi almost spits out the tea in his mouth. He composes himself first before gulping it and taking a deep breath. He looks over to Bokuto, and Aegan eyes meet Medallion ones after a long time.

“I wouldn’t,” Akaashi says simply, and Bokuto can’t help but smile. A clap of thunder vibrates the air, and Bokuto closes his eyes and winces. Akaashi wants to scoot closer, just a little closer. A little more to wrap his arms around Bokuto Koutarou like he always does.

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi calls out gently as he puts his cup down, and Bokuto shakes his head aggressively. “Stop fucking calling me that, Keiji,” he speaks through clenched teeth. 

Akaashi moves closer and tries to reach out for Bokuto’s hand, but he hesitates. “Koutarou,” Akaashi whispers, and Bokuto’s eyes squeeze harder. “Koutarou, look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Another detonation of thunder echoes between the walls and Bokuto can’t handle it anymore. He leaps into Akaashi’s arms and presses his head onto his chest. What Bokuto knows: _it’s beating faster and faster._ What he doesn’t know: it’s still beating for him.

“Because I’m still fucking in love with you, Keiji,” Bokuto sobs in Akaashi’s chest, and Akaashi’s eyes begin to water as well. He holds the bigger boy closer to his chest, running his fingers through his hair.

“I’m here, Koutarou,” Akaashi tells him, as he draws gentle circles with his thumb and then forefinger on Bokuto’s back. “I’m still here.” 

Bokuto chokes back a sob and pulls away, looking at Akaashi’s tear-stained face that mirrored his. “Did you mean what you said that day? A year, four months, three days ago? Do you not love me anymore? Are you tired of me?” He says in between small sobs, and Akaashi can’t help but giggle.

“Dumbass,” Akaashi pulls away from the hug and uses his both thumbs to gently draw the shape of Bokuto’s lower eyelid to wipe the small tears that are about to fall from his eyes. Pretty eyes that Akaashi remembers looking into every single time before pressing their lips together. 

“Of course I still love you. I love you the same everyday, Koutarou. I loved you yesterday, I love you today, and I’ll love you tomorrow. I know I suck at keeping up with the secrets I made to you, but I can promise you that for a lifetime.”

“Damn, maybe you should have really pursued Literature,” Bokuto cringes and Akaashi laughs heartily, titling his head back slightly. Akaashi’s pretty laugh which is later echoed by Bokuto’s.

“So does that mean we’re giving this another shot? I’ll be your boyfriend again?” Bokuto asks and Akaashi reaches out for both of his hands, slipping his fingers in between Bokuto’s. He brings one of their interlocked hands and presses his lips gently onto Bokuto’s rough knuckles.

“Yes, Koutarou. You’ll hold my hand?” Akaashi asks this time, and Bokuto feels himself falling in love all over again, as they are transported back to the time Akaashi holds Bokuto’s letter scribbled with all the thoughts that he had revolving around simple ‘i love you’s. He nods.

“You’ll cuddle with me?” Akaashi queries again, and Bokuto nods once more. Akaashi mimics Bokuto by pretending to think just like how the latter did before, and Bokuto chuckles, lunging himself onto Akaashi and they topple backwards as both laughs sound out like a symphony orchestrating.

Akaashi’s laugh turns into small hiccups of giggles as he looks into Bokuto’s eyes. Eyes full of love, full of love for Akaashi Keiji, and Akaashi Keiji only. “Will you let me kiss you?” Akaashi’s breath tickles against Bokuto’s lips.

“You don’t have to ever ask,” Bokuto reaches out for Akaashi’s glasses and takes them off his face and sets it down beside them, before leaning in and pressing their lips together that mirrored a heart full of the deprivation of love that ended at that moment.

Home is defined to be a place of comfort and permanent love that is built up over a period of time, and is often implied to be of a permanent feeling of belonging. Bokuto Koutarou defines it as this —

The thunder continues to roll outside, but Bokuto Koutarou isn’t scared anymore, for he finds comfort in the warm and loving embrace and mouth of Akaashi Keiji, and he knows that distances and times may change, but his home never will.

Akaashi Keiji, his one and only forever home.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this weehee!! kudos and comments make my absolute DAY


End file.
